I considered starting a PhD around ten years ago. One particular university was having an open day. When I got there everyone was locked out because someone hadn't bothered to tell someone else the open day was happening.
There were visits to the facilities, which were interesting enough but a lot of the tech had been there since the 90s (or 70s in some cases) and there wasn't anything fresh to see.
And there was a show-and-tell by various researchers and one lead professor, during which I realised the professor was a Grade A Bullshitter [1], and the researchers weren't even remotely familiar with other work in the field.
The main person I wanted to see didn't bother to turn up.
Bizarrely, there was a persistently religious undertone - very strange in a field that isn't even remotely religious. (The university is quite well known for its theology department.)
Now, this is a very niche field, so I have no way of knowing if it was typical.
But as experiences go it certainly didn't suggest that that particular department was simmering with eager high-voltage professionalism.
Since then I've read "We're looking for PhD students" notices on various email lists. It's striking how many [2] seem like transparently contrived attempts at getting funding from organisations who already know what exactly they want to fund, and how few have are truly research-driven.
It feels very much like a box ticking exercise. Org gets money, org hands it out to researchers, researchers get students, students write up dissertation, dissertation is forgotten, rinse and repeat.
[1] Subsequently confirmed independently by other people in various "Oh, him - yes, he's a loon" conversations.
[2] Not all. There are places who on the leading edge. But even there some of the research feels dissociated from real problems - almost as if the goal is the production of "Towards..." "Considering..." and "A critique/summary/review/taxonomy of..." of papers, and not so much developing techniques and solutions that that would really move the field forward.
Alas I only have an anecdote.
I considered starting a PhD around ten years ago. One particular university was having an open day. When I got there everyone was locked out because someone hadn't bothered to tell someone else the open day was happening.
There were visits to the facilities, which were interesting enough but a lot of the tech had been there since the 90s (or 70s in some cases) and there wasn't anything fresh to see.
And there was a show-and-tell by various researchers and one lead professor, during which I realised the professor was a Grade A Bullshitter [1], and the researchers weren't even remotely familiar with other work in the field.
The main person I wanted to see didn't bother to turn up.
Bizarrely, there was a persistently religious undertone - very strange in a field that isn't even remotely religious. (The university is quite well known for its theology department.)
Now, this is a very niche field, so I have no way of knowing if it was typical.
But as experiences go it certainly didn't suggest that that particular department was simmering with eager high-voltage professionalism.
Since then I've read "We're looking for PhD students" notices on various email lists. It's striking how many [2] seem like transparently contrived attempts at getting funding from organisations who already know what exactly they want to fund, and how few have are truly research-driven.
It feels very much like a box ticking exercise. Org gets money, org hands it out to researchers, researchers get students, students write up dissertation, dissertation is forgotten, rinse and repeat.
[1] Subsequently confirmed independently by other people in various "Oh, him - yes, he's a loon" conversations.
[2] Not all. There are places who on the leading edge. But even there some of the research feels dissociated from real problems - almost as if the goal is the production of "Towards..." "Considering..." and "A critique/summary/review/taxonomy of..." of papers, and not so much developing techniques and solutions that that would really move the field forward.